75 stuck in Singapore await MEA nod to return

The students fear deportation to Manila

20/03/2020, RAMESH SUSARLA,ANANTAPUR

While around 343 Indian students reached Delhi and Visakhapatnam on Wednesday from Kuala Lumpur after getting stuck there for more than 18 hours, 75 students from the University of Perpetual, Manila, are still stuck at the Singapore airport awaiting permission from the Ministry of External Affairs to return home.

On Thursday (11 a.m. IST and 1.30 p.m. Singapore local time), K. Namratha Reddy, a medical student from Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh, and Manasa from Bengaluru, both from the same university in the Philippines, told The Hindu over phone that while 70 students were still stuck in Manila, a batch of 50 students bound for Mumbai and 25 to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, had arrived at Singapore on March 17 and 18, but were not being allowed to fly out.

“The Indian High Commission in Singapore is in touch with us, but it has expressed its inability to do anything unless the Indian government give permission to fly into India. We are worried that we will be deported to Manila as we are on a transit visa in Singapore,” Ms. Manasa said.

Parents of the 75 students appealed to the Indian government to make early arrangements to bring back their children.

UGC advisory opens up online avenues

20/03/2020, R. SUJATHA,CHENNAI

The University Grants Commission’s advisory to universities and colleges to reschedule classes and ongoing evaluations “as a preventive measure in the wake of COVID-19” has turned into an opportunity to push online courses. Anna University’s Educational Multimedia Research Centre has urged its students to take up courses through Swayam platform, which can be accessed for free on Doordarshan.

S. Gowri, director of EMRC, said the shutdown of regular classes offered an opportunity to promote online platforms. The students have been told that the university was making available lectures of all subjects online for students through a state-of-the-art lecture capture solution that has been installed on the campus. “The students have been given detailed instructions and the method of access.”

Counselling suspended

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Open University has suspended counselling sessions of B.Ed Special Education programmes.

Cancellations, chaos at Central

20/03/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT ,CHENNAI

With Southern Railway cancelling several trains, people packed the few that were running on Thursday. R. RaguR_Ragu

People wanting to get to their native places from the city are rushing to the Puratchi Thalaivar Dr. MGR Chennai Central railway station, not realising that the Southern Railway has cancelled over 95 long-distance trains.

With 50 trains already suspended due to low occupancy on Wednesday, an additional 45 services were cancelled on Thursday. A total of 155 train services have been cancelled throughout the country as part of the Railways’ measures to prevent COVID-19.

The Railways on Thursday cancelled several services, including the Chennai-Vijayawada Jan Shatabdi Express, Chennai-Coimbatore Shatabdi Express, Chennai-Hazrat Nizamuddin Duronto Express, Chennai-Thiruvananthapuram Express, Mangaluru-Thiruvananthapuram Express, Chennai-Bengaluru Express, Tiruchi-Thiruvananthapuram Express and Mangaluru-Coimbatore Intercity Express. The services are being cancelled between March 20 and 31.

A total of 23 special-fare summer trains, that were to be operated in April, are being cancelled.

A senior Railways official said that to discourage people from undertaking non-essential travel, concession tickets for senior citizens and students were being withdrawn with effect from Friday.

The cancellation of several trainscreated panic among passengers who were to leave the city.

30% flights cancelled at Madurai airport

TNN | Mar 20, 2020, 04.47 AM IST

Madurai: Covid-19 scare has resulted in the cancellation of at least 30% of flights, both domestic and international, at the Madurai International Airport on Thursday. Officials said that while some flights were cancelled due to lack of patronage in the wake of Covid-19, some had to be cancelled as a precautionary measure as per instructions from AAI.

An official from Madurai airport said all the services between Madurai and Colombo have been cancelled, while flights to Singapore have already been cancelled. A few domestic flights connecting destinations like Chennai and Bengaluru have also been cancelled due to poor occupancy. In Tuticorin, of the six flights connecting Tuticorin with Chennai (5) and Bengaluru (1), two have been cancelled every day during the course of this week due to poor occupancy. Tuticorin airport director N Subramanian said that SpiceJet has cancelled two of its morning flights from and to Chennai from March 21 to April 30. Sources from Madurai airport said the cancellations left many passengers fuming. The airlines were opaque in letting fliers know the status of the upcoming flights. Passengers were asked to visit in person.

Nirbhaya convict's mother's last wish for her son - 'puri, sabzi, kachori'

PTI | Mar 19, 2020, 12.27 PM IST

NEW DELHI: With the hours ticking away inexorably, hope that her son will be spared the noose is fast slipping but, weary and angry, the woman stigmatised as "Nirbhaya rapist's mother" has one last ask -- will she be able to get his favourite "puri, sabzi, kachori" meal to him?

Her son Vinay Sharma is one of the four men sentenced to be hanged in Tihar Jail at 5.30am on Friday -- seven years-three months after the night of December 16, 2012 when a young woman, who came to be known the world over as "Nirbhaya", the fearless one, was gangraped so savagely that she died a fortnight later.

With the hangman conducting a dummy run on Wednesday and the Delhi high court rejecting yet another appeal by one of them, the execution of the four is all but certain after three postponements.

While the Supreme Court rejected Sharma's curative petition on January 14, his mercy petition was rejected by President Ramnath Kovind in February.

And the woman, who refuses to divulge her name and says she wants to be known only as "Vinay Sharma's mother" is increasingly more despairing.

The years of harbouring the realisation that her son is guilty in the horrific crime that made headlines across the globe and dealing with unrelenting media spotlight have clearly taken their toll.

"Who are you? What do you want? There is no one inside. My husband has gone out for work. I am Vinay's mother," said the woman outside her home in south Delhi's Ravidas Camp.

With its narrow lanes, shabby quarters and open sewers, the slum colony which represents the capital's seamy underbelly, just next to the upscale government colony of R K Puram in south Delhi, was home to four of the six men convicted of the crime.

And somewhere deep inside, a narrow, congested lane leads to the home of Vinay Sharma.

The nameplate reads Hari Ram Sharma and outside is the mother of four, in her 50s but looking older beyond her years, washing clothes on a grimy surface.

She doesn't let visitors enter.

"Kya likhoge tum? Kuch hota hai tumhare likhne se (What will you write now? Has anything happened till now with your writing?) If god wants he will be saved," she lashed out.

"It is all god's wish. Look at the coronavirus. It is god who decides everything -- who lives and who dies. It is beyond the control of any human. Neither yours, nor theirs," she said.

And then there is the glimmer of something resembling hope.

"The jail personnel in Tihar never allowed me to take food or any other thing. But if they allow, this time I would like to take some 'puri', 'sabzi' and 'kachori' for him," she asked.

Now, with the end near, she said she will soon be meeting her son in jail, for one last time.

The 26-year-old will be hanged along with Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31). On March 5 this year, a trial court issued a fresh death warrant with March 20 as the date.

Of the other two convicted in the case, Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail in 2015 and the sixth, a juvenile, was sentenced three years of punishment in a reform home and released in 2015.

While the widowed mother of brothers Ram Singh and Mukesh Singh has left the locality and gone back to her family in Rajasthan, the families of Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta still live in the slum colony.

The family of Pawan Gupta sells fruits to make a living and refused to talk.

The Nirbhaya case hangs like a shroud over the colony, which looks like just another on a weekday morning -- men leaving for work, children playing, some women washing clothes, others standing around chatting idly. But mention 'Vinay Sharma' or 'Pawan Gupta' and it all changes.

The laughter switched to awkward silences and people began to look away when asked for information on the family.

"Who are you? No, we don't know anything," said a woman at the camp as she stopped other women from talking too.

And then some in a group standing close by shared their views, hesitantly at first and then more assertively.

One man forwarded the "boys will be boys" theory and the others quickly stepped in to say the sexual assault and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern -- gangraped on a moving bus -- is a "horrific mistake" that merits exemplary punishment.

"People here have been talking about Vinay, Pawan and the other convicts since the unfortunate incident took place on December 16. Publicly most talk in favour of the conviction, but there are a few who would also say things against the punishment and ask if this will end rape in India. Some also ask why other rape convicts were not executed," said a nearby tea-seller.

"But one thing we all strongly feel about is how our home has been painted as evil by the media and other big people," he added.

(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)

Nirbhaya case: Resilience of law safeguards against human error, not weakness, says court

PTI | Mar 19, 2020, 07.38 PM IST

NEW DELHI: Resilience of law signifies inherent safeguards against human errors and not the weakness of law, a Delhi court observed on Thursday while addressing concerns over the efficacy of the Rule of Law due to the considerable time consumed by the judiciary in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case.

While dismissing a plea filed by three of the four death-row convicts seeking a stay on their execution, Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said: "When would the convicts meet the Creator for their eternal penitence? The issue has been pestering the conscience of the community for past some time. The time consumed by the process of law has even led some diffident voices to timorously question the very efficacy of 'Rule of Law'.

"Let me inform all the suspecting souls that in this great land of Gautam Buddha and Gandhi, Rule of Law and not impetuous mob mentality, decides the fate of even the most wretched criminals and most abominable crimes. The resilience of law signifies the inherent safeguards against human errors and not the weakness of law".

The convicts tried to delay the hanging by resorting to all kinds of tactics but in vain as the court on Thursday cleared the decks for Friday's hanging by dismissing the plea as no valid ground was brought to its notice to justify the stay of execution of death warrants.

On March 5, a trial court issued fresh death warrants for 5.30am on March 20 for the execution of convicts Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).

The warrants, which were issued for the first time on January 7, have been deferred four times earlier on the ground that they were yet to exhaust all the legal remedies.

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died after a fortnight.

Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case.

The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

Four Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case convicts hanged in Delhi's Tihar Jail, victim's parents say justice finally done

PTI | Mar 20, 2020, 06.04 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The four men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a Delhi woman on December 16, 2012 were hanged in the darkness of pre-dawn on Friday, ending a horrific chapter in India's long history of sexual assault that had seared the nation's soul.

Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed at 5.30am for the savage assault in an empty moving bus on the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known the world over as Nirbhaya, the fearless one.

This is the first time that four men have been hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia's largest prison complex that houses more than 16,000 inmates. The executions were carried out after the men exhausted every possible legal avenue to escape the gallows. Their desperate attempts only postponed the inevitable by less than two months after the first date of execution was set for January 22.

They were hanged at 5.30am, director general of prison Sandeep Goel said.

After raping and brutalising the woman, the men, one of whom was a juvenile at the time, dumped her on the road and left for dead on the cold winter night. Her friend who was with her was also severely beaten and thrown out along with her. She was so severely violated that her insides were spilling out when she was taken to hospital. She died in a Singapore hospital after battling for her life for a fortnight.

Six people, including the four convicts and the juvenile, were named as accused.

While Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case, the juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

The road to the gallows was a long and circuitous one, going through the lower courts, the High Court, the Supreme Court and the president's office before going back to the Supreme Court that heard and rejected various curative petitions.

The death warrants were deferred by a court thrice on the grounds that the convicts had not exhausted all their legal remedies and that the mercy petition of one or the other was before the president.

On March 5, a trial court issued fresh death warrants for March 20 at 5.30am as the final date for the execution.